The transaction card industry currently utilizes a transaction card, such as a credit card or debit card, made of certain materials and according to a certain specification range, such as the ISO 7810 standard. That material basically comprises a white core of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic, with a surface which can be printed with text and/or graphics. The card is then overlaid front and back with thin transparent or clear PVC plastic which sandwiches the card. After overlaying the card, certain finishing work is performed on the card to turn it into a transactable product for use, for example, at a card reader or card device, such as an automatic teller machine (ATM).
A typical transaction card consists, for example, of four layers. According to industry standards, a typical credit card cannot be greater than 33 mils or less than 27 mils in thickness. The transaction card industry traditionally uses a process known as “split core” in which the inside materials or core of the card consist of two separate pieces of plastic material, such as two pieces of white PVC plastic, each of which is 13½ mils in thickness. On top of those two pieces are laminated a two mil over-laminate of clear plastic on the front and another two mil over-laminate of clear plastic on the back of the core. In other words, the two pieces of white PVC plastic inner core or split core materials, 13½ mils each, are joined together to form a core 27 mils thick, which is concurrently over-laminated with the clear or transparent plastic over-laminates to form a transaction card that is 30 mils thick. All imaging, typography and the like are printed on the front and back exposed outer surfaces of the white PVC plastic inner core, after the split core components are joined together, and thereafter the over-laminates are applied.